


Slow Down

by Cottonstones



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 14:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2273223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottonstones/pseuds/Cottonstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clementine feels so far away from everyone, from herself, but especially from Lee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Down

Clementine is so far away now. She is so far away from Lee. Not far as in physically, though she is. They are separated by an impenetrable boundary, a firm line that makes her stomach hurt every time she feels the edges of it. Clementine is far away from Lee in every sense of the word. He’s still in Savannah, he's gone. She doesn’t even have the picture of him anymore. For a very long time, every single night in the barely-there light of whatever refuge that Christa and Omid had chosen. Clementine would pull out the ripped picture of Lee and try to memorize his face. She had been scared then, scared to forget him, because the memories of her parents were already foggy and when she dreamed of her mother, she only ever saw the sickening dead eyes of a zombie ambling towards her with no awareness, no recognition besides the presence of a meal.

Maybe it was too late to ever be able to properly memorize her parents, but she could still memorize Lee for what and who he was and not what she didn't let him become. Now, Clementine is older, the memories of her past even dimmer than they were a year ago. Clementine doesn't even have the picture to remember Lee by. The picture is nestled safely in her backpack, which, for all she knows, was left behind at the ski resort that had once, for a brief moment, felt like an opportunity.

But Clementine is the furthest from Lee in the sense that she is growing up without him. She is older and stronger, her body tightly bound and her hair short just like Lee had suggested. There's a disconnect for Clementine now, like she has lived multiple lives. It sure as hell feels that way by now, like each segment of her young life feeling like a different person.

What scares her is that she is different. She isn't the same girl Lee knew. Most of the time when she is trying to sleep but she can't stop straining her ears for the sound of approaching walkers or other survivors, Clementine will imagine, even for a brief moment, that Lee is out there and he is looking for her, like somehow he had been spared the fate that has met so many others. She imagines him finding her and, in his excitement, hugging her with two strong, sure arms - but then she imagines that he would pull back and notice she's a little taller against his chest and he would look her in the eyes and he would be able to tell that she wasn't the same. On her worst nights, she imagines that he doesn't even recognize her anymore.

Clementine's chest aches. It's so familiar now, a pain that she - and everyone else - wears like a second skin. You can't take a step in the end of the world without meeting someone who had a person, who died, someone who had their own Lee. Most of the time, Clementine can ease the pain that hangs around like the endless bitter cold of the winter by reminding herself that she is doing what Lee wanted her to do. She is surviving; growing and changing are just part of the deal. A lot of the time, when Kenny can't sleep either, he'll sit by Clementine and tell her that Lee is still there, that Clementine keeps him alive because she remembers him and talks about him. Kenny says that, as long as someone remembers you, then you're not truly gone. So far, she has every reason to trust Kenny about this. He knows as much about loss as she does, even more.

Besides, Kenny is a comfort. It doesn't matter to her what he's done or what the new group thinks of him. There isn't much comfort to be found these days, and maybe Clementine is just holding too tightly on the reigns of nostalgia, but there is this hollow feeling inside of her regarding her new companions. She cares about them in the sense that she doesn't want any of them to die, she wants them all to make it, but it doesn't feel the same, doesn't feel like it did before.

The fact that Kenny remembers Lee, remembers him in the same way that Clementine does, that's the reason that, no matter how much her new group complains about Kenny, Clementine can't give up on him. To give up on Kenny feels too much like willingly giving up on Lee, forgetting the last link to her old life, letting go of the last person who is with her that knew Lee. It feels too good to be able to talk about him and not have to offer an explanation, like; maybe he isn’t that far away after all.


End file.
